“Where to Now? Migrant Communities and the University”
Contemporary Challenges and Opportunities for Collaboration
November 20, 2009
The Geary Institute, University College Dublin

This one-day conference brought researchers, program directors, organizers, activists, and government officials together to address questions of how migrant and refugee organizations and universities can develop collaborative and cost effective ways to meet contemporary challenges and take advantage of opportunities.

For migrant and refugee groups the current environment has redefined existing challenges and created a host of new ones. With these challenges also come opportunities. Universities are creative problem solvers in both the laboratory and in the everyday world. Can migrant and refugee organizations and universities develop collaborative and cost effective ways to meet contemporary challenges and take advantage of opportunities?

This one-day conference brought researchers, program directors, organizers, activists, and government officials together to address these questions. Following a keynote and panel participants worked work in small focus groups. The focus groups concluded with an interface identifying outstanding needs within the migrant communities and confirmation of new workshops to address these issues in early 2010. These new workshops will seek to illustrate how university ways of seeing, understanding, and problem solving might assist community based organizations in their work.

Program Overview

Keynote Address by
Chinedue Onyejelem
Editor and Publisher, Metro Eireann

With Responses from
Niall Crowley and Steve Garner

Other speakers included
Sioban O’Brien Green, AkidWa
Paul Rowe, Educate Together
Rebecca King-O’Riain, NUI Maynooth Sociology

Focus Groups

Concluding Remarks and Reception